


A Chance at Restoration

by magpiespirit



Series: Uriel's Choice [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angelic Lore, Apologies, Cherub Aziraphale (Good Omens), Conversations, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-27 03:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20039392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpiespirit/pseuds/magpiespirit
Summary: Uriel decides to have that chat with Aziraphale. She's not sure how to reconcile the Divine Cherub who devastated the opposition with the clearly-defective Principality wholovedHeaven and Hell out of their apocalyptic grudge match, but defective or not, she needs his help.





	A Chance at Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> Direct sequel to "Drown Your Divine Sorrows." Warning: I do a lot of cherry-picking of religious lore and angelic symbolism/iconography, but so do heaps of religious folks, and it's not like GO made accuracy a priority anyway.

A.Z. Fell & Co. Uriel presses her lips together in an attempt to stay sober as she dithers outside the “bookshop;” Aziraphale _would _tempt God, wouldn’t he? That’s how he’s been since before Time began, one moment helping the lower Host with their reverberations, the next writing incomprehensible calculations on random sections of floor for no reason, not even to assist the Almighty in Her strange designs of what would eventually become _humans, _the next using Divine miracles to ensure that no rebel he fought would ever forget the terrifying, four-faced, four-winged Being with his Wheel and flaming sword...even if the scope of the damage meant they might forget everything else. He was hardly the most proficient on the battlefield. There were greater triumphs, greater devastations. But there’s still a Hymn to Aziraphale written into spacetime, even if the lower Host is forbidden from singing it now. 

Uriel respected him once, as a mentor and kindred spirit. She thought his decision not to kill the rebels who were foolish enough to storm the Throne was an act of punishment, not an act of softness. Over millennia, human terms like “sadism” and “mercy” have made their ways into Heaven through the cracks, but back then, there was just “Godlike” and “not so.” Aziraphale punished the rebels by removing their ability to move on their own, by leaving them to suffer their inevitable fall when the Almighty cast them out. That was Godlike. Sadism and mercy are Godlike too. So is capriciousness.

Maybe he’s_ not _ a joke. Maybe he’s just in on Hers. Maybe Uriel hates him because he’s still Godlike, and just like Her, he abandoned them. His Divine presence moves toward the front, and she makes an effort to observe the niceties — knocks on the door, straightens her suit jacket. A glint in the window reminds her of the gold flakes on her skin, and of how many flakes she’s lost. She’s beautiful. Of course she is; she’s an angel, and angels are beautiful, but she knows that her physical design is beautiful as well. Her build is rich and soft, her features are strong, her eyes are compelling; she is what the humans _ ought _ to think of when they paint angels instead of _ Aziraphale. _But she misses the gold, even if what’s underneath is pleasing. She’s quietly mourned the loss of every flake. It’s unbecoming of an angel to have so many feelings, especially feelings that aren’t in service to God, so she tends to avoid them, to pretend them away. Angels aren’t built to emote, so she doesn’t do it.

(She does do it, on the inside, where it hurts the most. The sin of pride, the father of all sins, is still only sinful if you aren’t ashamed of it.)

“Uriel,” says Aziraphale neutrally once the door is open. “What a...er. A surprise.”

Surely he’s not surprised to see her here. Angels can sense each other over great distances — and surely the demon who helped him betray the Almighty would have told him about their meeting. Somewhat confused, and shifting awkwardly foot to foot like an Archangel never should, she asks, “The Demon Crowley didn’t tell you I was coming?”

“No.” He frowns, eyeing her, and then sighs. “I’d rather not argue on the street and frighten my neighbors. If I let you in, you had better leave my books alone.”

“I’m not here to fight you, Cherub Aziraphale,” she murmurs, the Words gliding off her tongue. There are many human languages she could choose instead: Tamil, Aramaic, Hebrew, Egyptian, the ones that Aziraphale has spoken for millennia and she burned into this corporation’s mind for the purpose of this visit, but she decides that the cant of the Middle Host will be most effective. 

He looks — strangely — startled. He steps to the side and gestures her through the door. As she passes, she feels Grace flood her, and she nearly _ cries _at the weight of it, but the Archangel Uriel keeps her face impassive even as he answers, “My dear, I haven’t been a Cherub in a very long time.”

“You have the luxury of pretense,” she retorts churlishly, “but nobody else does.”

“I’m sorry?”

She declines to answer in favor of taking in the small, disorganized space. When Gabriel came back from visiting this place, he wouldn’t stop singing its praises. It’s why he took Aziraphale’s betrayal harder than the rest of them; he felt the Grace, and then he saw photos of unseemly _ fraternization with demons, _and he was the first to feel the second shade of Divine abandonment. Gabriel has always resented Aziraphale for failing to step up and do his duty, but he, more than any of the rest of the Archangels, held onto a spark of faith that Aziraphale would eventually fix the mess God left behind when She left them.

Instead, he stayed away. Just like Her. Uriel can’t help but wonder what she did wrong. She was built to love a cruel and absent Mother, and the only spark of inherent Divinity left in this universe is sequestered in a “bookshop” on Earth that smells unpleasant and has malicious succulents placed strategically around the premises. These, at least, are familiar; her lips lift a bit as she leans down to stroke the one closest to her, potted on a tiny table positioned perfectly to trip someone up.

“Hello, there,” she coos at it (the plant, not the table). Of all God’s creations, she likes humans the least, and greenery the most. This might be absolutely saturated with demonic malice, but it is still, functionally, God’s perfect creation. “Aren’t you beautiful.”

“Oh, please don’t flatter them. They’re doing a wonderful job of driving customers off,” Aziraphale says idly, fiddling with the bowtie around his neck, “and I’d hate to have to send them back to Crowley to get them properly whipped into shape again. I had to take them because they wouldn’t stop bullying his spider plants, you see. Er. Perhaps you don’t.”

“I do,” she says, and although it’s technically not true, she’s also technically not lying. She doesn’t understand what spider plants have to do with anything, but she can see the result of the demon’s efforts just fine.

The problem with higher beings is that everyone is a plant to them. Maybe a sentient one, but — does he even differentiate between the humans and the lower Host? The Almighty seems to have gotten bored, and she fucked off to a new universe a long time ago. Maybe this is what the Cherubim do when they get bored. He’s got his own little universe here, plants and books and whirring machines, projects and indulgences. She can feel divine magic running through the whole place, interlaced with something dark that feels distinctly like <strike>her apprentice</strike> the demon Crowley, and the entire place hums and pulses in the core outside her temporary corporation. 

“Oh. Good.” He twitches his fingers. Peers at her. He looks, by all accounts, just like any other awkward, nervous _ human, _ and if that’s the persona he’s chosen to assume here on Earth it makes a certain amount of sense, but what she doesn’t understand is why he keeps up the pretense when she’s the only one here. She remembers her own scornful jab at him all those months ago — _ you think too much — _and wonders, suddenly, if perhaps it’s the truth. He twitches again and asks, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Not today,” she says firmly, thinking of the wet-carpet feeling on her tongue the _ last _time she accepted a drink. “Sobering up is awful. But you could offer a place to sit down, Aziraphale. It’s only polite in your chosen society.”

Is hypocrisy a sin for angels? Or is the fact that she can brazenly chastise him for his _ manners _after ordering his execution — and not feel guilty about it — evidence that it’s only a sin for humans? She doesn’t know. That’s what this meeting is about, though.

For the past three months or so, she’s been going over the records. Officially, she’s checking for inconsistencies, or at least evidence of malpractice — _something _that can explain how the Antichrist was so easily influenced. Unofficially, she’s looking for evidence of God. She _must _have left some kind of memo _somewhere. _Normally, record-keeping, especially of the prayer variety, is Sandalphon’s job; his giant corporation (kept in reserve these days, for emergency use only) might terrify humans, but he’s always just below notice when his subconscious manifests itself. In fact, he’s hardly Archangel material, all things considered, but he literally can’t forget anything, so once he’s seen or heard it, it’s Known. This, however, is a different matter. Knowing something is different to understanding it. According to her creation, God is her Light; _Uriel_ understands things. It’s dangerous. Some things, Michael says, aren’t meant to be understood. And they certainly aren’t meant to be _questioned; _that’s why they have such a specific hierarchy, with each tier carrying out precise functions. Angels are supposed to follow orders.

But whose orders are they following? If they’re keeping the peace by carefully _ not mentioning _that the Metatron’s new job is to stand around looking like he knows things and give out canned responses, and the Archangels are holding everything together with the metaphysical equivalent of Elmer’s glue and popsicle sticks, they’re following orders they’re giving themselves, and not questioning those orders is just as dangerous as understanding things or questioning the Almighty. 

What Uriel has found in the records are countless aberrations. She would call them mistakes, but God doesn’t make mistakes, and this system of record-keeping is God’s, so surely there’s some explanation? Surely there’s something that Uriel is _ missing? _Surely this slow unraveling of her faith is just...unfounded. It’s a problem with her, another aberration, and once she’s confessed to it, she’ll be...corrected and forgiven. By the closest thing to a Divine Authority that exists in this universe.

_ (“You really think Upstairs will take your call?” _How she wishes she could take that back.)

“Of course. Come this way,” Aziraphale says, gesturing to a side room in his shop. She follows silently, looking around at his collection of human words. At a closer look, she realizes that his system of organization looks similar to her own collection of Divine scrolls, the gleaming Heavenly library that holds the Sol system together in the form of its star, and she feels—

No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t feel anything. She isn’t supposed to.

The room they enter is full of more books. On the desk is something she recognizes as a computer; it’s the same model she saw the last time she came down to Earth to converse with a human, sometime in the late-1980’s, so she supposes humans focused most of their attention on mobile devices and left computing machines in the past. Aziraphale probably only kept this one out of sentiment.

“This is the only couch comfortable enough to sit on,” he tells her, gesturing to a small, green thing tucked into a dark corner.

“Why is it important that it’s comfortable?”

He frowns at her, more of a thoughtful expression than a displeased one. “That corporation is still functionally human, my dear. Please, take a seat.”

She follows his example and sits. It isn’t..._ displeasing, _she supposes. Nothing in Heaven is made for comfort, but nothing needs to be. They don’t need rest when their interactive forms are simply willed into the visible spectrum. They don’t need private spaces when they have nothing to hide. This is all very alien. The demon, she could understand; his kind have all sorts of things to hide, and Hell is probably made to be as uncomfortable as possible, so he probably indulges in the comforts of Earth. Why does Aziraphale? Nothing makes sense here. 

“Now,” he says, looking at her like she’s been particularly naughty, “how can I help you, Archangel?”

“I’m looking for information,” she replies, weighing each word. This isn’t like the conversation she had over wine with the demon. She could say whatever she wanted to him, because he’s just a demon, and asking him questions was easy and easily justified should anyone find out. This is different. Aziraphale might not have a direct line to the Almighty, but he’s capable of smiting her where she sits. She doesn’t think he would, but angels were built to respect authority. “I want to know about Earth.”

“So ask your questions,” he encourages, a smile beginning to bloom on his humanoid face.

She shakes her head vigorously. “No questions. I’m not questioning. I’m...collecting information...that Heaven doesn’t have, nothing more. It’s not my place to ask questions!”

“All right. No questions,” he agrees, clasping his hands atop one knee, which is crossed atop his other. She mimics the pose, decides she doesn’t like it, and puts her leg down again. She prefers the sprawl she mimicked in the demon’s flat, so she does that instead, leaning one elbow on the armrest and spreading her legs a bit, lifting her toes off the floor to rest the weight of her legs and feet on her heels. It makes him smile a little more. “State your topics of concern, and I will address them.”

She gets the sense that he’s humoring her. It doesn’t matter.

“Heaven doesn’t understand what’s so special about Earth that you would betray us for it,” she says evenly, deciding to get the least important _ topic _out of the way first.

Aziraphale lifts a single eyebrow. For some reason, she understands that it’s not quite an aborted gesture of surprise, although by all rights it should be. “And they sent you to ask Crowley?”

“I...no. What makes you say that?”

“You were surprised that he didn’t tell me you were coming, and you said that sobering up is awful, so you’ve obviously had a conversation with him sometime in the past few months,” he points out logically, because of course he’s not the idiot he pretends to be. “He sent you to me, which was nice of him, but I don’t see why Heaven would send you to get information out of him. It seems counterintuitive. Gabriel wouldn’t trust him to tell the truth, and the Almighty already knows his reasons.”

“You don’t have to pretend, Aziraphale, we’re alone here,” she says quietly, looking down at her thighs. The suit isn’t comfortable. She didn’t notice that until she sat on a couch that was comfortable. 

“I don’t have to pretend what? That’s the second time you’ve alluded to...well, pretense.”

Something bubbles up inside her. It’s hot and slick and terrifying and it makes her physical corporation feel absolutely _ nauseated, _ like she’s about to vomit or possibly explode. Anger? No, this is Else, this is beyond, this is...this is _ wrath, _ something uncontrollable, and a tone she never expected to hear in her own voice wrenches the words out of the core of her. “Stop pretending She didn’t abandon us! Stop pretending She’s _ here! _ Stop — _ stop! _You’re so selfish, claiming the Earth for your own, pretending you belong here instead of up in Heaven-”

“Uriel, _ please, _ don’t say such things,” he says urgently, wide-eyed, breathing heavily, looking for all the world like he’s _ frightened, _ and it makes her even angrier. She jumps up, because her corporation can’t stand still. It wants to fight. It wants to hurt something. She sits down again because she doesn’t like that feeling at all, and he asks, “What’s _ happened?” _

“How can you sit there pretending you don’t know?”

Something _ shifts. _She can’t quite see it, but she can feel it: an alertness that wasn’t there before. This isn’t the Aziraphale she remembers, but it’s closer than the one she’s been talking to, the one who’s been halfheartedly following instructions they both know are beneath him. “My dear, I’ve lived in a human body for six thousand years, and I haven’t been in Heaven in quite a while, aside from a couple of check-ins and a brief stint of discorporation in which I possessed other humans.” He blinks, and adds, “And that business with the Hellfire, of course.”

“That wasn’t you. Don’t worry, I gave my Divine promise not to tell anyone,” she says, focusing on the awareness to calm herself. Angels don’t...do they? “What has all that got to do with anything?”

He gives her a half-smile, something sad and kind mixing together. She doesn’t like it because she does like it. “The only news I get from Heaven is what you and the other Archangels tell me. The Almighty can’t appear to humans, and I live as one, regardless of how She created me. The last time I heard Her voice was the day I sealed Eden, just before my Earthly form solidified. You ought to know that even the voice of God would discorporate me, unless I performed a detachment ritual.”

No — she _ didn’t _ know. How could she? Aziraphale is a Cherub. He made the decision to list himself as a Principality, and he made the decision to answer to Archangels, and he made the decision to live on Earth performing miracles like some common... _ something. _ The kind of full-time emissary work he does shouldn’t even be a real job, but presumably, the Almighty told him to do it, or at least She didn’t tell him _ not _to. The fight goes out of her as she realizes that he’s just as much in the dark as she is, maybe even moreso. 

He wasn’t talking about calling the Almighty back from Her new, apparently more important universes. He just thought he was going to talk to Her, didn’t he? He thought things were still the same, because nobody bothered to tell him. Everybody thought he _ knew. _ In light of this, his actions make a little more sense.

“Aziraphale,” she says, voice small, _ “nobody _ can hear the voice of God. She and the upper Host left Heaven just after you did, and the Metatron hasn’t even heard from Her in almost two thousand years. The Archangels are handling everything because we’re the highest of the Host left in this _ universe, _other than you.”

He doesn’t say anything, and the air feels heavy between them. She slides her eyes over to look at him; he looks pale, unfocused, something she can’t place. It’s obvious on his face, but she’s not familiar with many emotions; a human would be able to place it, she’s sure, and once again she finds herself jealous of God’s favored creatures. Angels came first!

(Sin. It’s a sin, _ she’s sinning, _why is she having these thoughts? She never used to.)

At a whisper, he says, “You...you’re sure about this.”

“Lying about this would be treason of the highest order-”

“So is the summary execution of a Principality,” he points out tartly.

_ “Cherub,” _she corrects, even though that doesn’t help her case at all.

“Does it matter who I used to be? She assigned me to guard the Garden, and She didn’t recall me.” His voice is hard, and so is his face, and for once he looks like a real angel, ready to smite in the name of righteous judgment. Some part of her wonders why that is, and why it sounds wrong. “I assumed my new assignment was to guard Adam and Eve, and then their descendants. When the new messenger came round asking what my job was, I told him I was a Principality, because that was my function here on Earth, no matter what She created me to do in Heaven. In the beginning, I prayed all the time, Archangel Uriel. I asked Her for a sign. I asked Her to recall me if She was unsatisfied with my work. When the messenger appeared to me and told me that there was a new bureaucratic hierarchy in Heaven, I didn’t question it; why would I? Are you telling me that all of these orders I’ve followed so faithfully — all of these edicts I’ve kept — they’re not orders from the Almighty?”

“We’re doing the best we can,” she defends, curling up a little. She feels small in the face of what she’s beginning to recognize as real, _ dangerous _anger, the kind of angelic anger that comes before someone disappears forever.

“God does not approve of your frivolous miracles,” he recites, voice still cold. “In addition to your everyday personal allotment, you have Healed too many humans and performed too many Inspirations. Listed below are the names of thirty-six humans you blessed and yet failed to save. You must choose between your own personal comforts or your humanitarian efforts.”

“Look at my face, Aziraphale,” she tells him. She meets his eyes, and the brown of his irises is seemingly on fire, unable to decide whether it wants to stay human or the bright, inhuman blue of his Cherubic form, but she refuses to back down. “Two thousand years ago, my face was at least two-thirds gold flakes. We are losing our Divinity. Humans are losing their faith, and we’re losing our power, and Hell is only gaining. We have to ration our miracles, because the Almighty _ doesn’t care.” _

This stops him up.

It stops her up, too.

She’s said it before, under cover of a secretive meeting with a demon. It didn’t feel like sacrilege then; it was justifiable. She could pretend to herself that she was just trying to see what he thought. Just trying to see if demons still believed in the Almighty’s plan. And she was intoxicated, so it barely counted. According to death records, intoxicated beings say a lot of things they don’t mean, like _ I love you _ and _ yes _ and _ I’m sure I can drive home. _It’s different now, because she’s sober, and she can’t take it back, and she can’t justify it.

But...maybe Aziraphale _ will _ understand. She keeps forgetting that he’s the one who betrayed them. And she keeps thinking, privately, shamefully, that he might have been right to, and she wants to hear bad justifications, some stupid explanation that will make siding with Heaven _ correct, _but it feels hopeless, and everything just...comes to a head.

Angels aren’t supposed to ask questions, but questions don’t just go away because you keep them unasked.

“Why did She leave,” she asks desperately, burying her face in her hands. She’s not allowed to cry, but here she is, crying, sad, _ furious. _ She’s so furious it’s like the gravity of a spiritual black hole. “What did we do wrong, Aziraphale? Why doesn’t She love us anymore? Why does it _ hurt _so much?”

“Perhaps...She left to give us the same chance she gave the humans,” he suggests weakly. “Free will and growth? If she isn’t there to dictate our every move…”

“We weren’t built to _ have _it!”

“But I developed it,” he tells her, _ sotto voce. _ That’s actually true. “In fact, so did Crowley, and so did the _ Antichrist.” _

“That doesn’t make it any better.” She sniffles, and wishes this corporation weren’t so susceptible to _ human _ reactions. Physical reactions to pain always look so pathetic and undignified. It’s one of the things she doesn’t like about humanity, that vulnerability. Adam and Eve always looked like one good scolding could finish them off. She’s sure to look just as weak now. “If that were the plan, why wouldn’t She tell us? Or at least tell _ you?” _

Wobbly voice, wobbly shoulders. She hates it all. Humans ruined so much. The universe used to be perfect. God used to love them. 

“I’ve had faith in the Ineffable Plan for the whole of my existence, but I’ve begun to think...oh, my dear, you’ll hate to hear it.”

“Just say it,” she demands, looking up at him.

His face looks like he’s in pain, but perhaps not physically. He closes his eyes. “It could be that the Almighty never had a plan at all. We may just be a game to her, and whatever rules She’s set out keep changing because we don’t know what the game is.”

“But she promised,” Uriel says, feeling the truth in his statement and rebelling against it anyway. “She promised there was a plan.”

“I can’t speak for her. No one can. All we have is speculation, and that will only drive us mad.”

The ringing Truth in that statement tips her over the edge again, and without warning, she finds herself slumped over, half-slopped into Aziraphale’s arms, her chest heaving painfully as emotions she’s not allowed to have spill out of her very human form. Her face leaks fluids other than tears, her sinuses _ burn, _ her chest _ aches, _ her stomach feels like it’s tumbling over and over. It hurts, it hurts, it _ hurts, _ and Aziraphale’s arms are warm and soft and firm around her, but she still doesn’t feel safe, because he feels — _ tastes, smells, sounds — _like Grace and Divinity and all the things she associates with the Mother who is no longer in Heaven. 

He might be in the same boat, but he can’t know what it’s like. He can’t understand how it feels to have the cosmos on his shoulders, to have to look the little angels in the eyes and explain to them that they aren’t allowed to play the Divine Harps anymore because they’ve been liquidated. He can’t know because…

...because they never told him. They expected him to know, and they all resented him when he did nothing with the knowledge he never had.

Acknowledging this does not soothe the sting. Aziraphale still betrayed Heaven, and regardless of whether his inaction was deliberate or a simple case of lack of facts, the result was the same. Time and stress have taken their toll, and it’s not as simple as forgiveness. He rocks her back and forth and she wishes it _ were _that simple, but it’s not just politics, it’s family.

She draws away abruptly, ashamed of her outburst. It’s _ family. _What was she thinking, letting another angel see her like that? He might be disgraced, but she isn’t. She is the Archangel Uriel!

“I owe you an apology,” he says gently, resting a hand on her head. It’s a brush of higher Divinity, soothing, _ blessed, _ and she can feel tears well up in her eyes again despite her best efforts. She hates him for making her remember what she’s lost, but she’s grateful for it, too. Maybe this is what her old apprentice meant, about love. It _ hurts. _ “I didn’t communicate with you. I left you in an unwinnable situation, and I’m _ sorry.” _

“It’s — it’s not your fault,” she says, the words tumbling out of her chest, and the worst part is that they’re true as much as they aren’t. Nobody thought to _ tell _Aziraphale that God had left, because they all assumed he knew. They assumed She told him Herself. But a Cherub calling himself a Principality, doing emissary work...it’s unprecedented, and it’s unfair. His place was never on Earth to begin with.

“It is,” he disagrees, removing his hand. She wishes he wouldn’t. “I’ve always wanted to do the right thing, my dear, but _ what is _ the right thing? The right thing for you would have been to stay in Heaven, despite my wish to protect God’s precious creatures. The right thing for the humans was to help inspire them. I truly believe that the right thing in either case was to stand by the Antichrist and help give him the courage and inspiration to stop the apocalypse, but other than that, there are so many options for what might have been the _ right _thing through the years. You were right: I think too much, and you paid for it.”

It isn’t fair. _ Nothing _ is fair. Without thinking about the potential consequences, she blurts, “There are aberrations in Heaven’s records. Things that were Known and now are not. Time didn’t exist before Adam was cast out of Eden and it was Known that evolution was a joke, but now, it’s real; it exists outside of God’s purview. The animals are no longer Heaven’s domain. I think...that human belief might be reshaping history, either because of what happened with the Antichrist or because their faith has shifted to what they can see and taste and measure. I’m afraid, Aziraphale. I don’t want to die. I don’t think God is going to save us. Look at my _ face.” _

“And look at mine,” he says gently. “Really look, not at my corporation, but at _ me. _ I haven’t lost any Divinity, my dear. I have never _ needed _to ration my miracles — possibly because humans believe in me. They can see me and taste me and measure me. If you’re right, and Heaven is losing power because humans no longer have faith, then perhaps the solution isn’t with God, but with them.”

She Looks, even though it hurts. It always hurts to look upon a Cherub, because the point of him is to inspire awe and submission in everyone who does. What she sees is something Divine, something beautiful, something indescribable and impossibly old. Her eyes feel like they’re _ burning, _so she closes them, even though all she has to do is push her focus to the side.

That Divinity is not inherited. It is not gifted. It is inherent. A long time ago, so was Uriel’s.

“Maybe you’re right,” she murmurs shakily.

He nods once, sharply, and tells her, “Now, I don’t want you to be erased, or to die, or to fall — any of you, no matter how you’ve treated me. But you must understand that what you and I have spoken about _ cannot _be used against the people I care about. I believe I have made it clear to whom my allegiance belongs, and with whom I will stand, when threatened.”

It’s a warning and a plea, that much she can tell, and he’s talking about humanity, but he’s also talking about the Demon Crowley, and for some _ unfathomable _reason, she feels a well of...something fierce inside of her. What is it? 

“You had better mean to love him like you chose,” she says sternly.

Oh. Protectiveness. That’s new. Aziraphale, for his part, doesn’t look intimidated at all. Instead, he looks _ delighted, _the bastard. “Standing up for a demon, are we?”

“For my former underling,” she corrects, because at this point owning her indiscretion can only do good for her, “and I mean it. If we’re allowed to make choices, I want to choose the side that doesn’t leave me in a cold, empty universe. I haven’t got a chance at beating you if it comes down to a one-on-one fight, but if you decide to be a hypocrite, I’ll find a way to make life unpleasant for you.”

“I shall endeavor to do right by him. And by you,” he promises, Truth reverberating in his voice. He doesn’t even need to bring out his wings to do it. “Are you still going back to Heaven?”

“I am. I’m not like you, Aziraphale. I have no attachments here, and this corporeal form isn’t meant to last. Maybe someday I’ll manage to... I think that you might be right, about human faith, and if it comes down to it, I may need to choose your side. My — Crowley’s side. But for now, I’m needed upstairs.”

“My shop is open to you, if you need sanctuary,” he tells her, patting her shoulder briefly and then fluttering his hand like he’s not sure what to do with it. After everything, she’s not sure if it’s a natural tendency or a deliberate affectation like she previously assumed. Some things are not so easily qualified.

“Thank you,” she says with a nod, deciding it doesn’t matter either way. She’s been given an opportunity to possibly regain her Divinity, or at least gain some more. When the Last Battle comes — and it will, in one form or another — she may march into it with a demon and a Cherub, head held high. God is gone and Hell is what it is, but maybe this third side will make her remember what Heaven is supposed to be.

It’s all right to have a broken heart. It’s not angelic, but if God doesn’t love them anymore, then it should be all right to be something new. If God doesn’t love them, Uriel ought to have the chance to love herself.

**Author's Note:**

> So Aziraphale finds himself in the position of the older brother who moved out before the abuse got really bad, and has to face the fact that maybe his loyalty was misplaced and his childhood was romanticized. The question of what God's actual plan is, is irrelevant; Uriel's suffering is real, and the damage -- while hypothetically treatable -- is irreversible.
> 
> Sometimes you want to write about parental abuse and neglect and shifting morality and like malleabe realities. I also just barely managed to stop myself from writing the one where Aziraphale (entirely accidentally) inspired the Marquis de Sade and regretted it forever. GO brings out the weird in all of us.


End file.
